MD

Will be superb though i wonder why placing it over the old tote board on bend 3 wouldnt be a better option.

Sounds a good move to a Saturday. Im sure the owners will have undertaken a sensitivity analysis and worked out it benefits more people than it inconveniences. It will clash with Braehead Clan but only really in September & October. The Clan dont always play on a Saturday at home anyway, I've already been to a Friday match and they do have periods on the road when arena is being used for something else on a Saturday. Public transport wont be an issue for the train anyway, the service remains every half hour from Queen Street and back on a Saturday with the last train from Ashfield at 23.34. I think we are getting a bit desparate quoting riders travel departure times. By moving to a Saturday we are hopefully increasing the number and scope of riders potentially available to sign. However the biggest hurdle may be getting it voted through the AGM. Wonder how our near neighbours would vote!

Superb meeting once it got going after ht2. Lambert was excellent as he couldnt gate and had to work his way through traffic, made all the more spectacular under floodlights. For once the outperforming guest reserve was on the home side and he didnt disappoint. Thought it was poor of Michael Max asking each rider if they wanted to return. Bach was clearly uncomfortable and may not want to return for a full season but prefer to do as this year and return to the UK in May/June. It is obvious that each of the top four cannot return anyway and putting each rider on the spot like that was unfair IMO.

From the city centre the easiest option might be by train from Glasgow Queen Street to Ashfield which only takes 5 minutes and is a further 5 mins walk from there to the stadium. Looks like the service is half hourly in and back. The buses from the city centre dont run past Ashfield as far as I know, you would have a fair walk from Saracen Street to the stadium on FirstBus No75. If you dont know where you are going its not an area you would really want to get lost in.

Why not, we have become accustomed to outperforming guest reserves in the visiting corner.

But an advantage at Ashfield if r/r.

We were starting to slide but the previous home defeat to Somerset when we tried to manipulate the track has shattered us. Self destruction! We were immense at Sheffield IMO to keep it close in the first leg and should have finished it off at home but the confidence in the lower order isnt there. Best wishes to Sheffield.

Jim Lawrence

On another night we could have made it closer. Lunna snapped a chain on a Glasgow 5-1 to make it a 3-3. Ht8 Auty never made the 2 mins but wasnt excluded and ht11 Sissis did a circuit back to the pits for no reason when the 2 mins had expired when all 4 riders were sitting at the tapes, again no exclusion. Starting to wonder if MacGregor has been spoiling us. Eight points should be good enough, job done for the GLA Tigers to keep it less than 10 and a decent night's entertainment in South Yorks.

And the point of posting at all was .......

Please post the link that confirms this.

Give me an example from 2016 that would back up your comments.

And the BSPA still wont realise the problem and amend next years calendar to address it.

Guests bring a lottery element to fixtures as we have found out with Somerset recently. Difficult to call this one. With a reasonable forecast for Sheffield on Wednesday night I will be travelling down. Hoping for a decent meeting and a loss of no more than 10.

Indeed, the track was awful rather than not great and the primary reason our reserves never got amongst it. Its all gone a bit flat since then. You'd have to go back to 2014 to find a meeting, never mind a play off where a thread was only started on the morning of the meeting. Hopefully common sense brings us a decent track, gives the racers confidence to pass and the fans are treated to an enthralling first leg. It feels like we are owed it after last week and i dont mean from our riders.

Confidence comes from winning at home which you then take into away meetings. Getting soundly beat at home as we were last Sunday isnt going to magically inspire an away win in the reverse fixture but doubts amongst the riders that they are good enough. This is the legacy of manipulating the track to suit nobody last Sunday where a flawed decision can have consequences on not just the result that day IMO. This Sunday the forecast isnt great meaning the track will have to be prepared conservatively to cope with heavy rain in the build up to the event. That should prevent us hitting self destruct for this week anyway.

That he's the last person that should be managing a speedway team and jumped before a push. Attending an English language course to string a coherent sentence together?

Thats it but how do you get the message across to those in charge.

Indeed but we the fans dont deserve it, when it is within the clubs' control to fix.

The pits cleared that quickly you'd have thought a fire had broken out. Bach wanted a word with Bates, im sure any other rider would have at least listened, had a few heated words and rode away. Bates on the other hand responded in the only language he knows. Ive never understood punching another riders' helmet but he had a few goes anyway to confirm he's really not very bright.

Glasgow were beaten before a wheel was turned by what im sure was with the best intentions, by preparing the track heavily with biblical amounts of water to give the home team the edge but which did the opposite. Ayres was twice on his arse, Garcia bit the third bend air bag damaging his bike and both Lunna & Bach were clearly uncomfortable and not prepared to try the big runs round the third and fourth bends. Why we couldnt prepare it as seven days ago is lost on me, the weather has been good with no threat of rain. A bit like British speedway we dont seem to learn from the past. I listened to the TM's interview that the team wanted the track the same as last week. Did they get it or was the incessant tractor grading a futile attempt to redress the problem? At the second grade the shale was coming away in clumps with the tractor driver dumping the mounds from the grate on the back straight. The focus of the meeting will be about Bates but in reality it was a poor meeting strung out for too long. Three 1-5's from heats 6-8 and a further in ht14 confirmed Somerset a deserved win. Despite 9 race winners for Glasgow, we were often outgated for the other places. Makes Friday night a formality though we now see Josh Bates three times in the next seven days and incidents like today give dicks like him an edge to do that little bit better.

The travelling support started to disappear in the mid 2000's when the club had a relaunch under a new promoter. I remember one fan telling me the then promoter would constantly change the team and you never knew what team you were turning up to see. Im not sure if this coincided with job losses in the area but its the old story, once fans stop coming they get used to it and rarely return.

Doubt it, it will reduce the number however we will likely not have enough riders to fill team spots and end up begging Aussie 3 pointers to come over.

What percentage of the PLRC crowd were actually Sheffield fans? Fans no longer travel the way they used to and these type of events are greatly devalued in the modern era. I suspect that holding it at a normally well attended club on their usual race night would be just as good, and free up a weekend in the process.

Speedway never learns from its own issues. The PL cut off should be the end of August with each round of the playoffs given a defined week e.g. week commencing 1 September so that it can be dealt with by the end of the month including rain offs. October speedway is rarely fun and its always freezing. Its also time for shared events to be moved away from weekends and for a more robust fixture list to ensure clubs dont go weeks on end in the summer without a home fixture when the weather is often glorious.